Smoke Encrypted Whispers

Smoke Encrypted Whispers showcases Samuel Wagan Watson’ s imaginative brilliance and exceptional poetic skills. In this book, which also includes work from three previous collections, his poems pulse with the language and images of a mangrove-lined river city, the beckoning highway, the just-glimpsed muse, the tug of childhood and restless ancestors. Wagan Watson’ s poetry is the work of an artist who speaks to a sense of our common humanity, and to a communal attachment to place. Reading this book is, as Tony Birch points out, ‘ like witnessing Bruce Springsteen meet the Dreamtime’ .

Tony Birch is the author of four novels, five short fiction collections, and two poetry books. In 2022 his book, Dark As Last Night was awarded the Christina Stead Literary Prize and the Steele Rudd Literary Award. The book was also shortlisted for the 2022 Prime Minister’ s Literary Award for fiction. His most recent book is the novel, Women and Children, (UQP 2023). Samuel Wagan Watson hails from the honourable ancestors of the Birra-Gubba, Mununjali, Germanic and Gaelic peoples. His rich collection of published works have won numerous awards including the David Unaipon Award (1999), the New South Wales Premier's Book of the Year (2005), the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry (2005), the Scanlon Award for Indigenous Poetry (2016) and the Patrick White Literary Award (2018). His work has been translated into seven languages, inspired various musical compositions, and has been the subject of film and television productions and visual art projects.

Introduction by Tony Birch xiii OF MUSE, MEANDERING AND MIDNIGHT a prelude 3 magnesium girl 4 after 2 a.m. 5 back seat driver 6 on the river 7 waiting for the good man 8 raindrops fall in vain 9 chloe in the window box 10 the postman’ s privilege 11 musing: the graveyard shift 12 new farm is closed 14 white stucco dreaming 16 the crooked men 18 brown water looting 20 jetty nights 21 carefree 22 deadman’ s mouth harp 23 a verse for the cheated 24 the fatal garden 26 radio thick blood 28 midnight’ s boxer 30 surgery music 31 a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee 32 the gloom swans 33 a black bird of my mind 34 fly-fishing in woolloongabba 35 shout-me-a-wine requiem 37 crust 39 the writer’ s suitcase 40 midnight’ s plague 42 labelled 44 for the wake and skeleton dance 46 the dingo lounge 48 valley man 50 cheap white-goods at the dreamtime sale 52 the mosquito room 54 mudflat 55 it starts 56 1986 57 BOONDALL WETLANDS poem 9 61 once was a rifle range 63 the kabul manifest 65 HOTEL BONE the job 69 hotel bone 71 when dogs gamble 73 (untitled) 74 bone yard, south brisbane 75 ITINERANT BLUES cold storage 79 the dusk sessions 81 kangaroo crossing 82 what more 83 we’ re not truckin’ around 84 nil by mouth 86 the golden skin of cowgirls 87 floodlight sonatas 89 abandoned factories 90 scenes from a getaway car 91 night racing 93 3 a.m. escape 95 pre-flight 96 95 cents a litre 97 deo optimo maximo 98 gasoline 100 literary festival bump-out 101 itinerant blue 102 products of mexico 103 gas tank sonnets 105 sunday 107 the last bullfighter 109 back road 111 sultry gridlock musings 112 brunswick st blues 113 ambulance chaser 114 talking to the airplanes 115 three-legged dogs 116 fire 117 the night house 118 jaded olympic moments 120 without regret 122 future primitive 123 the night train from newcastle 125 sortie 127 the finder’ s fee 128 skeletons in the trunk 130 the thousand-yard stare 131 king 133 last exit to brisbane … 135 hollow squall 137 SMOKE ENCRYPTED WHISPERS smoke signals 141 tigerland 142 scared of the dark 143 wecker road 144 cribb island 145 capalaba 146 rip 147 smoke water 148 author’ s notes #1 149 darkroom 150 fisherman islands 151 paper trails to midnight 152 author’ s notes #2 153 ghosts of boundary street 154 dog tired tune 156 when I crossed the ditch … 157 author’ s notes #3 158 the dust company 159 from boundary street, west end, to the berlin wall, east germany 160 snapshots 162 aunty grey smoke 163 author’ s notes — conclusion 164 revolver 165 Acknowledgements 167